Missouri GOP governor candidates differ on education policy

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Looking ahead to a 2016 campaign, Missouri's two leading Republican gubernatorial candidates disagreed Thursday over education policy while espousing the potential to tap into cost savings instead of new taxes to pay for highways.

State Auditor Tom Schweich and Catherine Hanaway, a former Missouri House speaker and U.S. attorney, are jostling for an early advantage a year-and-a-half before the gubernatorial primary. They spoke at an annual Capitol gathering of Missouri editors and reporters hosted by The Associated Press and the Missouri Press Association.

Democratic Attorney General Chris Koster, who also is running to succeed term-limited Gov. Jay Nixon, was invited but didn't attend.

The Republican primary got off to a contentious start when Schweich launched his candidacy two weeks ago by accusing Hanaway of being "bought and paid for" by retired investment firm founder Rex Sinquefield, who has contributed $890,000 to her campaign. Schweich also has taken six-figure checks from supporters, though he hasn't received as much from a single source.

On Thursday, Hanaway faced questions about whether she would seek to implement Sinquefield's agenda of income tax cuts and school-choice initiatives. Hanaway said she backed "lower taxes and better schools" long before she met Sinquefield and defended efforts to repeal a Missouri law that qualifies teachers for indefinite contracts after working for five years at a school district.

Catherine Hanaway

She said schools should have the flexibility to pay bonuses to recruit the best math and science teachers and to manage their personnel.

"I think that eliminating teacher tenure takes us out of the lockstep that we are in now and puts that control back into the local school districts," Hanaway said.

Schweich said he believes in school choice and local control for curriculum but opposes efforts to eliminate teacher tenure protections.

"I do not agree with those who think you can brow beat teachers into improving their performance by denying hard-working, middle-income people the little bit of job security they get. I think that's a really bad approach that will not prove to be effective," Schweich said.

The candidates also were asked about whether they support additional revenue for Missouri's transportation department. Voters last fall defeated a three-quarters-cent sales tax proposal for transportation, and the agency recently announced that a projected funding shortfall in 2017 will mean that it can no longer adequately maintain most of the state's roads.

Schweich said he doubts the dire assertions and accused the agency of "arrogance" for rejecting his audit recommendations it stop using a state airplane to fly commissioners to meetings.

Schweich has suggested that hundreds of thousands of dollars could be saved by requiring the commissioners to drive.

"I will not be convinced that they need more money until they show me more of a commitment to keeping their own costs down," Schweich said.

Hanaway said Missouri's roads are in need of more money.

But rather than backing tax increases or tolls, she said Missouri could redirect as much as $500 million to roads by finding about 2 percent savings in Missouri's annual operating budget.

That would be a new approach for the state, which has traditionally funded highways through user charges such fuel taxes and vehicle licensing fees.

"Because we've seen proposal after proposal be rejected by the voters, we need to find some savings within the budget," Hanaway said.

Both Hanaway and Schweich said they support "right-to-work" proposals, which would bar union contracts in which representation fees are automatically charged to all employees, even those who aren't union members. Such legislation passed the Republican-led House on Thursday, but faces opposition from some senators and Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon.